According to legend, some Microsoft employees who’d reached the point when their stock options could be exercised supposedly wore a button reading “FYIFV,” the last three letters meaning “I’m Fully Vested.”

Brian J. Noggle’s John Donnelly’s Gold (Brookline, MO: Jeracor Group, 2011) is the story of four employees at a St. Louis Internet startup who were unceremoniously squeezed out of the company before they’d reached that presumably-happy status, and who were sufficiently irritated by this action to vow revenge upon the newly-arrived Chief Executive Officer.

Fortunately, John Donnelly had an ego bigger than his CEO salary: he’d gone so far as to buy a bar of gold bullion and train a webcam on it 24/7, the better to illustrate the corporate website. Which suggested a plan of action to this quartet of ex-employees: as a substitute for the vast sums they felt they were due, they would swipe the gold bar right out from under John Donnelly’s nose. There was, of course, one minor detail: tech types generally don’t have a lot of experience with breaking and entering, except to the extent that it involves passwords and databases. Still, this is a realm where you learn by doing, and so they developed a plan.

This really should not have worked as a novel: technical descriptions tend toward the mundane, and most of the techies I know are decidedly short on drama. What makes this worth your time is Noggle’s attention to detail: J. Random Noob will appreciate the extra exposition, and your local expert will nod, “Yeah, that’s exactly the way I’d do that. If I were going to do that, which of course I’m not.” There might be a hair too much geographical exposition  by the time you’re finished you should be able to hire on as a cab driver in St. Louis County  but no matter about that. The plot is more than sufficiently twisty; I’m pleased to report that I did not even come close to predicting the way it ended. And if the dialogue meanders a bit, hey, that’s the way these people talk. I’ve heard them, and so have you.

This isn’t quite, say, the Elmore Leonard version of WarGames. It is, however, an entertaining mosaic of gigabytes and grifters, and you should read it. Unless, of course, you’re John Donnelly.